A look at how the ten riders to watch for 2025 fared, both for their riding and where they stood in relation to the predictions and expectations set in January.
Was the transfer of Juan Ayuso the most memorable thing he did in the year? At the start of the season he was sat in a gilded cage at UAE, well paid but without the freedoms he wanted. Now he has resolved this after being sprung by prodigious amounts of cash from Lidl-Trek, ready to enjoy income and freedoms, at the price of pressure and expectation. It’s certainly recent news and a topic to think about over winter but he had results too.
He won Tirreno-Adriatico, finished second in Catalunya and took two Vuelta stages in solo style as the glass-half-full scenario, he’s now able to win mountain stages and time trials alike. The glass-empty side was the Giro, his prime goal and he did win a stage but an early crash ruined his GC chances and he later left the race.
January’s neo-pros to watch blog post suggested Ayuso might have a sore neck from looking over his shoulder as Pablo Torres came up behind him; similarly Isaac Del Toro’s rise in the Giro probably helped ease Ayuso’s departure as the Mexican looks so promising that UAE didn’t have to retain Ayuso. A rider to watch for 2025, next year promises to be as interesting to see if he can deliver and how he’ll collaborate with new team mates, all on a team that’s now looking almost as crowded at the top too.
Tom Pidcock was a big name in the Ineos exodus and one part of his move to Q36.5 was to have the freedom to race as he pleases rather than the obligation to grind out grand tour results, the chance to throw his hands up in the air rather than follow wheels. The irony was he stood on the podium in the Vuelta in a year where he didn’t finish worse than sixth overall in a stage race, Giro excepted, and there were few wins along the way. He probably rode the Giro out of duty following a focussed spring classics aim after his team got a late wildcard so this looks like an exception to the season.
We can see the results but the unseen change was in management and culture with the new team and it seems to have suited him. Again 2026 looks interesting as his team are automatic invites for the top races and he’ll want to be active in many events, the question of what he targets is open right now. As the clear leader he and management will be working out what sounds fun but does this include the Tour and GC? There’s a wider issue here with a rider leaving the World Tour and a big-budget team and thriving and lessons for others who might fancy trying, and one component is moving with an entourage of staff rather than riders.
Is Arnaud De Lie a sprinter? That was the question in January and whether Lotto could spare him from contesting hectic bunch sprints given they had sufficient UCI points so that he could be better deployed in the classics and for the kind of finishes that really suit him and so avoid crash risks. Only things were more complicated and at one point he questioned if he wanted to ride a bike.
He suffered injury and then spiralled into borderline depression and missed the spring classics after abandoning Gent-Wevelgem. He told L’Equipe in July that he had to stop riding the bike in spring and had a “huge feeling of disgust towards cycling”, saying sometimes he might question what he was doing during a mountain stage but once he reached the finish he could take satisfaction and see some fun, but this time “I hated what I was doing”. Depression, burn out? That’s for professionals to diagnose and De Lie didn’t enter a clinical procedure but instead retreated to the family farm and didn’t ride his bike for a while. It worked and soon enjoyed riding again and while success wasn’t there at the Tour de France, it built him up for a win in the Renewi Tour in August, taking the final stage and overall after beating Mathieu van der Poel.
Marc Hirschi‘s move to Tudor came with questions about whether he could assume leadership and advance towards winning races longer than 200km. He started well, winning his first race with the team… but it was the 184km Classica Valenciana. Illness in Tirreno-Adriatico spoiled his spring. Tudor got a wildcard for the Giro partly on the promise of Hirschi but he had to miss it as the team deemed him unready. The Tour de Suisse was a struggle and he had a discreet in the Tour de France too. Worse, come the autumnal races in Italy where he’d seemed unstoppable a year ago now he could only manage one second place. Having started the year in sixth place on the UCI rankings he fell to 56th. It’s tempting to blast his signing as a flop but it’s nuanced by illness and the perils of leadership, it’s often easier to be a lieutenant than a general. The real answer probably depends on what he can do next year.
Could Olav Kooij turn from a carp into a dragon? You’ll have to read January’s piece for the folklore reference but he delivered but hasn’t finished the year as the fire-breathing sprinter to terrify others. He delivered 11 wins, and all on a team that can’t commit to every sprint going. He’s a modern sprinter who is agile on short climbs but so is Matthew Brennan who apparently can push the same watts but weighs 4-5kg less so you can see why the Dutch team did not fight hard to retain him. It’ll be interesting to see him in the classics for Decathlon-Ag2r La Mondiale but he and they would sign up for the consistency show this year, just as long as it extends to a Tour de France sprint win.
Could Kévin Vauquelin be freed from scoring in small races and instead begin to show signs of a being a grand tour contender? Yes indeed but it happened in a roundabout way. He still needed to win for confidence and to give his team some cheer as they hunted for sponsors and landed the modest 2.1-rated Pays de La Loire stage race in April. The story is well told by L’Equipe’s podcast where went into the Amstel Gold Race soon after only to abandon which saw him roasted by management because others had worked so hard for him. Days later he finished second in the Flèche Wallonne, a repeat result from the previous year, but as the photo suggests a better result. Much of the improvement has been in terms of mentality, there’s no manual or youtube tutorial on how to assume team leadership, but he seemed to get the feel of it during the year, including coping with setbacks.
He finished second in the Tour de Suisse after taking three minutes on eventual winner João Almeida on the opening stage. By then he’d signed for Ineos and since incriminated them for helping him on the road at times here although not loudly enough to warrant a De Bondt-style UCI investigation.
Vauquelin enjoyed an exceptional Tour de France, much of it in the spotlight, seventh place overall albeit over twenty minutes down. Did this show his limits where he was among the best in the opening phase but receded in the high mountains or can he make gains here? Again if this post is a review, it’s the future that is more tantalising… all assuming he’s over the broken leg suffered at home which meant his season finished in July.
Pelayo Sánchez was supposed to improve on 2024, only he quit almost as many races has he finished and his season was such that there’s not even a decent picture to accompany these words from the RCS, ASO or Getty libraries. His best result was 33rd on a stage of the Boucles de la Mayenne. He had a concatenation of health problems: knee pain, Lyme disease and shingles. He said the knee issue saw him train harder to come back, which left him weaker for the borelia bacteria which in turn gave the zoster virus the opportunity it had been waiting for. Hopefully he’s recovered and set for better next year.
Ethan Hayter joined Soudal-Quickstep and the vision in January was whether he could get back to racing “wolfpack” style, hustling for wins here and there, the kind that saw him contend for World Tour stage race wins and pick of select bunch sprints with ease. Only this year he opted out of the bustle of fighting for position and instead took all his wins and all but one of his top-10s in time trials. So he was almost a mini-Remco but this included beating Filippo Ganna in the Belgium Tour, a result that will have thrilled his team. He did try in breakaways too but of course they’re often doomed. In short things did not turn out as planned but he’s found a valuable niche, one that will become even more important now that Evenepoel has left.
It was only in the summer that the cartoon by Martin Vidberg above depicted Lenny Martinez burdened by the weight of French expectations. Now his phone barely rings while Paul Seixas gets all the bother. Martinez had a good season, wins in Paris-Nice, Romandie, the Dauphiné and the Japan Cup probably saw him matching expectations. In March his Paris-Nice win in the vicious uphill finish was a triumph for a puncheur but could he he become a grimpeur? Yes or oui as we saw this in Romandie and his win in the Dauphiné’s final stage was exquisite for the cruelty of the way he played Enric Mas, he’s not someone to play poker against.
Picking off wins here and there is something most would like to manage but he’s got a contract at Bahrain to become a GC contender and this is the hard part. Indeed we got a glimpse of this in July when going for the mountains competition got too much, he started to make unforced errors, whether tactical or that infamous “sticky bottle“. There’s money in trying to follow the likes of Pogačar for as long as possible but will he try this or go for wins and polka-dots again?
Cian Uijtdebroeks was already a big talent that was dropping off the radar and 2025 saw him reverse the trend, just. He was almost Kylian Horspantalon given he rode a très French calendar leading to his first pro win at the Tour de l’Ain, riding the field of his wheel on the Grand Colombier. Arguably like Ayuso he made the news as much for his transfer as results with a surprise move to Movistar. You’d imagine the team’s staff are fretting how to spell his name but they have a Dutchman in Sjors Beukeboom running digital communications and it’ll be interesting to see if he’s learning Spanish, as while English is the peloton’s language it’ll help him integrate. His win has got him back on track and the move to Movistar will see him able to pick his calendar.
The post also rattled through a few other names. Among them Florian Lipowitz delivered big in the Tour to the point that Red Bull hiring Remco Evenepoel can be questioned, at least to see what the answers tell us for next season. Thibau Nys had an easy win in the GP Miguel Indurain and some top-10s in the Ardennes but back in January the question was if he could contest wins in the Tour’s opening week, he started but discovered it was all on another intensity. Tom Donnenwirth was mentioned as a curious neo-pro aged 26 who’d only started racing recently and he got a win this year, a small cheer during Groupama-FDJ’s poor year. Caleb Ewan came and went, a surprise signing for Ineos, two wins and then a mid-season retirement, the “Predictions for 2025” mentioned riders can earn so much these days they can retire early and he’s a case in point.
I´m at the point with Uijtdebroeks as to being undecided if it is/was a breakthrough/comeback. I hope his (next) new team isn´t as confused as I am. 😉 I´m not trying to be mean to the young man, but he seems to me to be the opposite of all the cases quoted of the amazing young breakthrough talents and their boundless self confidence. From the outside at least, his seems to be a case of too much too soon if only for the very high expectations he places upon himself.
I think his win showed some injuries overcome and he was solid in other races too but “the new Evenepoel” tag from the early days has faded. After Visma bought out his contract the move to Movistar feels not quite like a last chance but a big deal as there won’t be much waiting time or support roles, it’s leadership early on.
Re: what you write above, a Vallieres (also to Movistar) he’s been also based in Spain in the past, so I’d expect him to be able to work out some daily talk in Spanish (or Catalan…). Don’t know about current days but when Valverde was still racing road in the team you’d struggle to find English speaking staff.
Matt White speaks English fairly well.
A sign of changing times 😉
He also speaks Spanish, I guess, decently enough to feel confident referring people back then to Del Moral (who surely speaks English).
As IR explains almost all of Hayter’s 2025 points came in time trials, or in GC classifications thanks to his time trial prowess. Soudal-QS will probably consider that decent value, but what happened to the rider who was so strong in punchy sprints an 2021 and 2022? Has he opted out of the risks required to fight for position in sprints and accepted that he’s more at ease as a ‘lone ranger’?
Seems so. He didn’t like the pressure of having to rub shoulders and elbows in the finish and might not be ruthless enough for it. If he can deliver in other ways then it’s working for him. He didn’t win from the breakaway but he could find opportunities here from hard fought moves that go early in the day, a “Ben Healy day” only he can still sprint.
Given his success in the madison and other chaotic track events that surprises me. But its another thing to do it on the road, and I’m certainly not brave enough to have done either. He seems a rider of out of time – the “last product of British Cycling”. But I’ve enjoyed his success this year and hope a Remco-less QS gives him a platform to more.
I’ll be looking out for his brother too, recently signed to Hincapie’s team – a rider to watch for 2026?
I’ll be amazed if either Uijtdebroeks or Ayuso ever win a grand tour. Once a rider (or other sportsperson) has shown themselves to be flaky, with nothing ever being perfect enough for them and thus changing teams, they rarely form a successful career.
And Ayuso has shown a number of times that he will not work for others. I’ll be surprised if Ayuso is still in the sport at the end of his contract (2030). Once he’s still not winning, blaming others and has earned enough money, I can’t see him having the stones for it.
> I’ll be surprised if Ayuso is still in the sport at the end of his contract (2030). Once he’s still not winning, blaming others and has earned enough money, I can’t see him having the stones for it.
I bet that Trek made sure the Ayuso contract would be loaded up with as many options as the Project One bike program.
Cycling is moving quite rapidly towards a state where contracts are just the starting point for the next round of negotiations.
Lidl-Trek are ambitious but they’d probably sign today for Ayuso on the podium of the Tour in 2027, with some stepping-stone success in 2026.
Imagine having to pick their Tour team next summer. Pedersen wasn’t happy to ride the Giro this year so presumably wants the Tour, Milan had a great debut and will want to return and both can but Pedersen might be suited to hilly days that suit Quinn Simmons while Skjelmose has unfinished business and that’s before Nys has a go too meaning what resources are left in climbing support for their star Spaniard? Potentially it all makes for a solid TTT squad though.
I don’t feel like Lidl-Trek needed Ayuso. They are/were a very visible team with a lot of fairly popular and entertaining riders. Granted they didn’t really have a GC man but I’d consider Ayuso too much of a risk in the wages/ego/results. Pedersen gets them a lot of coverage in the classics as well as stage hunting, Milan and Ciccone are presumably visible in the Italian press, Nys has the Belgian press covered, Simmons probably has US followers. Ayuso will probably take opportunities from all of those, without winning a great deal.
Also, as an aside, buying a time machine swapping Del Toro and Hirschi between Tudor and UAE and redoing the Italian autumn classics would make for an interesting experiment.
That’s a great point. Lidl-Trek might have been better off doubling down on both Milan and Pedersen in the grand tours, perhaps even Ciccone chasing stages instead of GC.
They’d certainly be interesting to watch.
I’d send Ayuso to the Giro and to the Vuelta this year, and try to get a win. That’s got to be better for his confidence/happiness than a podium at the TdF. Depends who is doing the Giro, mind you – if one or both of Vin and Pog are doing the Giro, I’d probably change my mind.
I think at least one of them will leave next year, due to some frustrations in 2026. I have the impression Lidl jumped out of the blue on the occasion to have one possible GT winner, and it was not initially planned, so now they don’t know how to handle it properly, and the staff might already been choosing who’ll have a nice calendar and who can be deceived and go at the end of the year.
Who would you absolutely keep ? I think Skjelmose will go. I wonder if they will manage to keep Milan and Pedersen.
While Uijtdebroeks is unlikely to win a Grand Tour, I think Ayuso is well capable of winning either the Giro or the Vuelta in the next few years. He can climb and time-trial. He was joint favourite for the Giro this year and wins big one-week stage races.
“Ayuso has shown that he will not work for others”
I disagree. He had a bad Tour in 2024, where he failed to work properly for Pogacar (a young kid, early sickness). But later in the year he fully supported Pogacar at the Canadian classics. At the 2025 Vuelta he worked for Almeida when required. The one bad day was when none of the team expected a Visma attack, and he was granted permission to drop early (a genuine cock-up, not a conspiracy). And an important point: his team-mates were fully committed to him on his days to attack, something that would not happen if he was the terrible team-mate sometimes claimed. Overall conclusion, he fell out with Gianetti, but largely not with his team-mates.
A rider of Ayuso’s talents could have been there to help Almeida towards the end of almost (if not) every mountain stage. He was riding for himself on some days and dropping very early on the other days.
And if his team mates publicly said that they were fine with this, that doesn’t mean that they actually were.
Jay Vine was nearly as bad.
I strongly suspect that Almeida was deeply unimpressed with terrible support he received in that race.
Agreed. Don’t know if they just had really renounced in advance to play a riskier and more creative game, considering that victory was anyway out of reach, but the feeling was that Almeida might have got as well the very same result had he been riding for any low level team (just speaking of that single race, not the importance of athletical preparation of course)… which isn’t a good feeling when you’re actually in the strongest team around.
I think it’s important to consider the context when evaluating Ayuso’s performance in 2025. UAE were clearly not employing the Sky train tactics in the Giro and Vuelta, and at different times Ayuso, McNulty, Soler and Vine did things that go completely against normal team tactics. We just don’t know what the internal team dynamics are, or what individual incentives are. UAE were clearly trying to beat their overall wins record, so who knows how much they valued stage wins that didn’t seem terribly important in the grand scheme of things?
We do know a bit about their racing style with riders given a lot of freedom, both individually and collectively. Individually they’re incentivised to score wins and points for themselves in their contracts and collectively the team managers don’t set big plans with fixed roles for their riders, or at least things are not so hierarchical to the point where the riders decide as much as the team car sometimes; a contrast to the likes of Visma and Ineos. Being a UAE sports director must be one of the easier jobs around given Pogačar doesn’t need much directing; and often the same for other races like the Vuelta.
Ayuso is probably a different case given he was leaving but at the same time being able to do what he did shows things are different from other teams. See Pidcock at Ineos where he was left out of Lombardia etc.
Ayuso has gone on record as saying that he doesn’t like the lack of a clear plan from the DS in the races he does. He has said he believes that there needs to be more structure and more clearly defined roles. And more internal discussion when things go wrong. This might not really work with young and ambitious riders.
UAE seem to be set up to give the riders much more responsibility for the race tactics within the race than other teams. My impression is that Pogacar more-or-less is the DS for his own races.
@John Based on recent comments re: the Giro, I think Del Toro would agree with Ayuso’s preference of a bit more input from the DS!
Ugh, that anonymous was me…
@ J Evan. Completely agree. The days Ayuso offered support it was token. Almeida had every right to be very, very unhappy with the support he got from Ayuso and the team. Just that extra help could push him over the line to a GT win – and Almeida is a rider who deserves that.
Use statics confuse me but I cannot fault the riders. When pog is not there almost all there stars ride for themselves lives. Its a team issue and we won,t know until the situation comes up on a different team. Use has to many chefs and sometimes not enough cooks.
Its almost impossible to type a coherent sentence on a tablet when auto correct keeps correcting you so stupidly.
Spoll Chucker is useless…..
….annd iz yt realy needled?
“ Once a rider (or other sportsperson) has shown themselves to be flaky, with nothing ever being perfect enough for them and thus changing teams, they rarely form a successful career.”
This immediately made me think of Bradley Wiggins abandoning Garmin for Sky…
Wiggins went to a much better funded team, which also had very different prep for him: as his doctor at Garmin, Prentice Steffen, said, he didn’t need injected corticosteroids when he was at Garmin (and came 3rd in the TdF, so was evidently healthy). So, BW had every reason to move
“Once he’s still not winning, blaming others and has earned enough money, I can’t see him having the stones for it.”
Isn’t that a mindset that could be attributed to many riders though?
If Red Bull were going to hire Evenepoel, they should have got rid of Roglic, if they could – I very much doubt he’d choose to ride elsewhere on what would be significantly lower wages. If I was that team, I’d send Lipowitz to try to win the Giro, Evenepoel to hopefully podium at the TdF (to get the publicity), and try to persuade Roglic to go to neither and ‘save himself’ for the Vuelta (where I’d also have Lipowitz ride – and very probably beat Roglic). In this year’s TdF, Roglic very much showed that he is not a rider who is willing to work for others.
The money being spent on riders who are past their best – Roglic – or never likely to get there – Ayuso – smacks of desperation, and is indicative of what happens when money comes into a sport.
I’d love to see Evenepoel and Pidcock accept that they’re never going to be top grand tour riders (especially Pidcock). They could have far more successful and far more exciting careers as one-day riders. They might even be able to challenge Pogacar in those.
I’m not sure why Evenepoel would accept that! He’s finished three of six grand tours he’s started, won one of them, finished on the podium on another, and won stages and the KOM in the other despite a terrible jour sans. Makes for a pretty top grand tour rider, no?
But I understand where you’re coming from. He’s unlikely to beat current kings Pog and Vingo, all things being equal. But in cycling things never stay as they are for long and I suspect he’ll keep on going and take another chance when it comes.
Pidcock slightly different, sure, but again… I think he’ll keep pulling at the CG thread a while longer. He seems able to combine disciplines and race types well, and keeps him motivated. More fun for us.
Well, no actually. He’s only finished 3 of the 6 grand tours he’s started, and is prone to a terrible jour sans. He is good, obviously, but always seems to be fighting the tide in grand tours.
Evenepoel’s one-day record is very impressive.
In GTs, he won a Vuelta against weak opponents (Roglic having crashed himself out).
And he’s come third to Pog and Vin.
Other than that, he’s shown himself to be an unreliable GT rider on four occasions. (Finishing half of your GTs is the opposite of impressive.)
So many riders have thrown away excellent one-day prospects by becoming GT also-rans – Dan Martin, Valverde, etc.
If Evenepoel is not the third best GC rider, then who is?
PS. Roglic had a poor Tour since he went in sick and consequently under-trained after the Giro crash. He was favourite to win at the start of the Giro. It is too early to claim he is washed.
Why would you want to be ‘the third best GC rider’?
I’d rather be winning one-day races.
I find the GT obsession odd (other than the obvious financial benefits – but those are driven by spectators as well).
You’ve answered your own question in that parenthesis.
But Evenepoel has enough money already.
And his fame/worth would surely increase if he was winning LBL, not podiuming in the Tour (again).
Win a race [again] that you’ve won twice already versus a continuing shot at winning by far the biggest race in the world. Complete madness. Obvs.
Why would Froome continue to be the 750th best GC rider over the past five years?
His love of Israel?
LBL he can win; TdF he cannot.
‘by far the biggest race in the world’ – only in the eyes of the general public, not cycling fans.
And my point is that I believe Eve will never win the TdF: he’s not good enough up mountains consistently. Therefore, there will always be someone who can beat him: I think Lipowitz would from his own team. (Unless ASO does a course with much more ITT kms than is normal these days, as they did for Wiggins.)
Therefore, I think Eve would be better off trying to win multiple monuments. Other than M-SR (which would not be unfeasible), he would be excellent in all of them. For me, winning Paris-Roubaix is as impressive as winning the Tour.
The possibility of winning all five monuments would be far more alluring for me. WVA should also have focused on this instead of blunting himself training to be a domestique.
Also Nibali was the third best GC rider at the start of the 2014 Tour behind Froome, Contador, and maybe even Valverde. Now he is known as a TdF champion.
Nibali was a consistent GT rider – and a consistent winner and high-placed finisher.
Evenepoel isn’t.
And has not shown that he is currently the third best GT rider.
Valverde ROTFL
Lipowitz I suspect.
I personally don’t really get the Lipowitz hype. He had 2-3 months of reasonably good results without ever looking like he would get a victory. At the very least, I would want him to show something this year before I am willing to think he is the 3rd best GC rider in the peloton. The candidates I would put forward are: Almeida, Evenepoel, Roglic, Ayuso. And I can understand an argument for any of these (which suggests none have a completely convincing case for being above the others).
I’d rather say “nobody”.
The rest still needs to be tested through more seasons of racing or are not consistent enough (Remco’s case, among others).
A decent candidate might also be Almeida, currently more than Lipowitz, but as I said the “right” answer is “no one”.
Like, you know, Silone’s Fontamara:
“In capo a tutti c’è Dio, padrone del cielo. Questo ognuno lo sa. Poi viene il principe di Torlonia, padrone della terra. Poi vengono le guardie del principe. Poi vengono i cani delle guardie del principe. Poi, nulla. Poi, ancora nulla. Poi, ancora nulla. Poi vengono i cafoni. E si può dire ch’è finito.”
It took everything falling into place almost perfectly for Remco to win the Vuelta, but who’s to say it won’t happen again? There are only two GC riders who are clearly out of his class, and they don’t ride every race. I would say that Pidcock is another step down, but a podium in a Grand Tour is a pretty decent result for a second-tier team, no? Of course scheduling will be key for these teams, but that’s true for everyone except UAE. As for Roglic, he had a strange 2025, but he has shown that he has great quality AND willingness to work for others throughout his career, so I wouldn’t write him off just yet.
When did Roglic ride for others in grand tours? It certainly wasn’t for Lipo or Kuss when they were ahead of him.
He’s 36, which is generally past-it when it comes to cycling, and his form has – understandably – dipped in the last few years, when it comes to GTs. His 2024 Vuelta was against weak opposition, and if (the even older) Thomas had attacked him when he had a gap on him in a stage of the 2023 Giro, Roglic might have lost that. (And in the 2023 Vuelta, had they all been allowed to ride against Kuss, Vin clearly had the beating of Roglic.)
Bora’s signing of Rog for big money was IPT-style throwing cash at someone who is past their best.
Granon. Things went sideways in the 2023 Vuelta, but he was promised leadership so I can understand why it got weird in that one (although it would have been great if he was more like Vingegaard and gave Kuss his shot). To compare his contract to what IPT has done is just way off. He has had his disappointing moments for Bora, but a Vuelta, a Dauphine and a Catalunya seems like a decent return on investment to me.
I agree, the IPT comparison is harsh, but Bora overspent for that return. And that was always going to be the case.
Had everybody being riding only for his own GC bid at Visma in all the key stage, Roglič would have won that Vuelta, not Vingegaard. The latter took advantage of a team-protected status when his form still had to improve (another example of form getting better throughout the three weeks, by the way). Which was one of the factor that got Roglič way angrier, really, that is the team used his respect to Vingegaard as a weapon to later use Vingegaard as a leverage in order to prevent Roglič really attacking Kuss, as final victory went out of reach.
Generally speaking, questioning Roglič’s 2023 level is bordering to absurd as it was one of his best seasons ever. Barring the two top GC men he was head and shoulders above anybody else.
That said, he sure went a little step down away from Visma or just growing one year older. It’s not uncommon that the decline of a cycling career may happen via one or two impressing steps across just a couple of seasons. In 2024 he still was among a selected group of “best GC contenders” (as always in these recent years, not the “two very best”), yet with no clear advantage above the rest barring his technical quality. In 2025 he’s been a solid cyclist with class and racecraft but athletically he’s in a way, way broader percentile.
I think that the actual question for Bora is… had they spent the money differently, on available real riders of course, would they get much more return? If they wanted a GC man (not only for GTs obviously), I doubt it. Perhaps if they only could lure Almeida or Jorgenson out of their current team, but I can’t see that happening. Other better candidates to cover this last couple of seasons?
There’s no reason to believe that Roglič would have attacked early in the Vuelta had Vingegaard been fit (or even not in the race).
Also, if this story comes from Roglič, then I wouldn’t believe a word, considering how disingenuous he has been in the past.
And beating Thomas by 14 seconds in the Giro was not a masterly performance.
@J Evan
I don’t necessarily mean going harder as a team early on (which would have helped Rogla), I’m referring to the Slovenian sitting on the wheels instead of leading the chase when Vingo attacked on Tourmalet or even Bejes. Believing that all that Rogla had in himself was 10″ at most over the likes of Mas, Ayuso or Cian doesn’t look probable when checked against, say, Angliru (or final GC).
They were rather tactical situations.
Obviously, I believe that Rogla should have attacked earlier and deeper all the same, no matter if Vingo was on the front. The latter would have won all the same on Bejes but with less difference and would have lost probably enough the Tourmalet stage. That was all pretty apparent just watching those stages, but people in the sport shared the same perspective (providers of technical components for the team, not related to any of the athletes specifically).
That Giro has been lost by Ineos, I agree, but Roglič’s performance was outstanding considering he was ill (probably covid), and not only stayed in the race but also kept his competitive options open enough to finally grab it. To me, an actual masterpiece, i.e., winning when your body is not at his best (far off) throughout the three weeks. A case of excellent baseline of physical form prevailing over contingent health… (thanks to a great mindset, of course)
gabriele, I never believe rider’s claims of being sick. It’s too easy an excuse.
@J Evan
But *he* was actually claiming to be fine 😉
Which is probably why INEOS didn’t took advantage of the occasion to attack him.
Thomas’ aversion to attacking would have helped.
(Not that I have any more faith in supposed illness stories.)
@J Evan
*Thomas said* that Roglič had personally “confessed” him that he had covid, as all the peloton gossip had been indeed whispering loud for days. Official versions from Visma insistently denied.
Thomas inferred that Rogla had lied to him (or was just joking), maybe in order to prompt Thomas to “incautiously” attack, so Geraint used this situation as the supposedly rational motivation to… avoid attacking ^___^
IMHO, the whole story shows mainly how little was happening at that Giro 😛
That said, I think that if everybody in the peloton was talking about the subject, Roglič was probably really suffering from some sort of cold/flu, manifest enough to allow the rest of athletes around him noticing it. Whether it was covid or not and the rest is impossible to know, and specifically what he supposedly told Thomas is 100% mind games, i.e. wholly irrelevant in terms of true or false.
But that Roglič might have been faking symptoms all the time during the race, only to be seen by many fellow cyclists, uff, I’d tend to consider such a conjecture a bit far-fetched.
So was Roglic claiming to be fine or confessing that he had covid?
Roglic’s win in the Giro over Thomas was an incredible performance. He’d looked lacklustre for most of that Giro, and had had maybe 1 good day in the week leading up to that uphill TT. Then he destroys everyone on that TT, *despite* being stopped fiddling with his chain for 20s odd.
Remarkable performance, he was just infused with new energy that day it seems.
@J Evan, publicly he and the team denied he was ill.
Geraint, in the context of generalised peloton gossip on the subject, reports that Roglič had privately told him otherwise, specifying “covid”, although G. himself says that for the way he was told it was maybe a joke or a lie.
So it’s not something that Roglič himself would have ever made public openly, like justifying his performance or the likes. In fact, he didn’t.
At the same time the fact that everybody was talking about it hints at some factual perception by those riding side by side with Primož, dare I say. Just the mere idea that he could use that subject for a joke or a mindgame of sort on G., it wouldn’t make any sense if he hadn’t an evident cold/flu of sort.
I think we delved into the very last detail, so anyone might believe what they prefer. But you need to walk a very long way to make coherence around the idea of Roglič’s 2023 being a mediocre or otherwise disappointing season. Whereas the opposite interpretation is pretty much more consistent. That season he also won an impressive Catalunya, dominated Tirreno, Burgos and beat *Pogačar* to Emilia…
@Paul J
Indeed it was one of those Visma “coupes”, single-day peaks of performance. That said, it had become apparent through the last week after the rest day that Doglič was better and better, putting the pressure on with Kuss towards Val di Zoldo and then attacking, still no gap with G., then being able to drop him albeit not much on Tre Cime. Of course, the peak on Lussari is very notable all the same, even if some pacing and gearing mistakes by Thomas in that ITT also helped quite much.
@gabriele At no point in that week did Roglic look like he was capable of destroying the rest of the field and Thomas. Stage 16 on the Tuesday, roglic lost 25s to Thomas, came in 38s ahead of Kuss, 51s ahead of the major group. S18 on the Thursday, just behind Thomas, only a little ahead of the other GC and climbers – 36s to Kuss and Dunbar. S19 on Friday, again, comes in with Cort but fails to beat him to the line for the 3rd place time bonus, and just a smidge ahead of Thomas with a tiny 3s gap on him, and about 23s ahead of Almeida and a couple of others.
Then the next day, he puts *40s* on Thomas, who was himself riding out of skin, 42s on Almeida on fairly short climb. And that was despite shipping at least 20s with his dropped chain.
An incredible performance. Roglic just had bags more power than everyone else that day – despite not showing anything like that form earlier in the week.
@Paul J I remember it quite well and at no point what you write contradicts what I had written above. I think you overestimate G.’s performance, he was trying to give his all indeed, but his mistakes were evident, so that couldn’t be his ideal/best possible performance anyway.
@gabriele
LOL: If Vingo had ridden a TT the way Roglic did, you would have complained it was an “outlier” and that you were unhappy about it.
@Anon
Insisting again on what I wrote above (check it out), which in a way – to me personally – indeed places those kind of performances in a similar more general category, still I notice how people struggle hard to make sense of figures and understand that specific ITT by Vingo, which, however generally similar, still sits on a separate planet of his own when compared to Lussari. You’d be right if on Lussari’s duration the difference on 2nd placed G. was 3.5x (say 2’20”) and on 3rd placed Almeida like 6.5x (say 4’10”). Maybe this may help you to see how ridiculous was Vingo’s big day and, by the way, how laughable is your comment.
@gabriele
The only ridiculous outliers are the ones from your Slovenian demi-god. 😉
@Anon nice try to slowly walk backwards whistling, but it’s a homer simpson thing, i.e., it won’t make what you wrote above any more brilliant. And it didn’t involve Pogačar, in case you yourself hadn’t noticed.
But given that unlike you I feel no need to walk away, let me add totally OT that, yes, of course Pogi has produced a number of partially comparable performances in the last couple of seasons, which surely leads me to partly similar conclusions (UAE 2024-25 is in the position held by Jumbo Visma in 2022-23).
Yet there are still a couple of not-so-slight differences you might be able to notice with proper effort.
To start with, Pogi has shown several of those exploits, so we’re left all the same with the hypothesis that he might indeed be an outlier in himself, as an athlete, with or without the lesser or greater additions he has been benefitting or not through time on top of that (Unless he’s regularly using a motor, of course). Vingegaard has proven himself esp. in 2024 as an athlete with a proper endowment of his own (i.e., beyond the contingent favourable circumstances which had possibly been granted by his team in its peak years) even greater than I’d have thought after the 2023 season, but the general perspective on both careers – with their respective highs and lows – just makes that single ITT more and more incredible as more data line up.
Secondly, what was notable in that 2023 ITT is that because of its mixed terrain and short length it was not especially selective or favourable to climbers in itself. Barring the huge gaps got by Pogi on the rest and the further, even bigger one by Vingo on Pogi, as for the rest several athletes came in close enough among them. Some 16 athletes had a lesser gap to 3rd placed WVA than the gaps above. On Hautacam 2025 or even Peyragudes the selection from 3rd place down, that is, leaving JV and TP out of the picture, is much bigger than what had happened on Combloux, only 4-5 cyclists fit into the proportional gap to 3rd compared to 16 on Combloux ; same for the Rwanda worlds or the 2024 Lombardia which to me are the other races which could be an interesting comparison because of their final statistical distribution – at the end of the top 20 athletes are 8-10 minutes back.
Now, you don’t need a genius to observe that it’s more surprising when a big difference happens on a race which is *actually less selective* for the rest of top athletes going hard for it, as it was Combloux’ case.
But I’m aware I’m asking a lot to homer’s engine…
Missed news on De Lie and explains his absence from the big classics, just thought he was out of form. Wish him all the best
The team mentioned he was having time off but the reason wasn’t defined too much but then Lotto manager Stéphane Heulot did say he was confronted with a type of burn out which as an ex-pro he didn’t hear of back in his day, the demands on a rider to train, to upload their riders, to log whereabouts, monitor what they eat, do social media and more make it a different kind of job.
That’s an interesting point. The racing is more intense too with fewer ‘cruising ‘ stages and a more compact (and dangerous) peloton requiring nonstop concentration. Just look at old film of seventies Tours and classics where the bunch was far less tight.
Yes, and it’s become something of a theme lately in the farewell announcements of retiring riders. See, for example, Michael Woods.
Not getting results [anymore] and the lament of fading powers, those are still there and always will be, but this idea of it all being too much, too full-on, excessive travelling, constantly away from home either racing or at training camps, the lack of family life, sometimes of almost any outside life at all seems to me to have become more prominent.
That this has happened post-Covid is frequently commented upon. Whether or not this includes some sort of code for other things – two-speed cycling, if you like – is another kettle of fish but it certainly doesn’t have to be.
I have the impression riders now ride closer together. I wonder if this is because they now have a greater understanding of the aerodynamic benefits of drafting. Maybe this has also contributed to the higher average speeds in the peloton nowadays (idle speculation here, I don’t really know).
They do. This will also have an impact on crash statistics and may be best treated usually as in a ‘no fault’ category rather than the confrontational dichotomy of rider error versus course design.
Or even today I read Evenepoel talking about this in Het Laatse Nieuws, how he did 290W to finish second in Lombardia when his new team mate Gianni Moscon did 200W on his way to third place in 2017 (and Moscon is significantly heavier).
Possibly also explained by Evenepoel not having great racing nous?
Curious that you say Pidcock never finished worse than 6th in a stage race over the season whilst mentioning the Giro, where he finished 16th.
The exception that proves the rule 😉
Will fix the paragraph above, thanks.
Of the “ten-to-watch”, how many were “a success” this year? Was it two? With four failures? How do othres feel?
Pidcock and Vauquelin were impressive, even more so considering their teams. Kooij and Martinez were satisfactory although there’s a thin layer of probabilities where you might expect even more from them (I didn’t). De Lie, Ayuso and Hayter salvaged some decent victories in the middle of a general sense of disappointment. Hirschi and Pelayo were invisible, Cian nearly so.
As ever these are not riders to bet on but often to explore issues and trends with, although some hopes for increased performances like Sanchez just happen.
Sometimes there are form picks for riders to watch out for, for example going into 2024… Oier Lazkano had impressed in 2023 and he was on the rampage only now we can apply hindsight to this.
Well, he was a rider to watch out for…
Yes, I agree. Ayuso was “one to watch” partly because many of us suspected there would be a “crisis” involving Ayuso and the team over leadership opportunities. While I didn’t anticipate the improvement in Del Toro’s form, I was also surprised by the poor form of Adam Yates. Nevertheless, it seemed there were too many riders wanting GC leadership and not enough opportunities to go round. And Ayuso is the one who made the choice to leave.
If Pogacar rides two Grand Tours in 2026, then likely one of Del Toro and Almeida won’t get a proper opportunity to ride for GC in a Grand Tour in the coming season. Personally, I anticipate Almeida will get leadership at the Giro while Del Toro gets the Vuelta (but who knows). I guess that Adam Yates will only get to lead in one-week stage races in the future. Will there be another “blow-up” in the next year-or-two?
On the understanding that they’re not a ‘Ten to Follow’ with the aim of making money from betting but a group of intriguing riders who could go either way and on whom various pegs can be hung to explore wider issues and trends in pro cycling as well as their own not completely certain career paths … you could easily do the same group for next year with the appropriate topical tweaks.